Color It Red Blog Hop!

It's always such fun to participate in Carol from Just Let Me Quilt's blog hops!  This time the theme is color it red.  Simple....just has to be red.  I decided to play with this theme and create an all red flower.

I've been playing a lot lately with using nontraditional fabrics in my applique.  It's fun to try something different and to get different effects.  This flower has two different kinds of velvet (see the light orangey petals with the curves?  Velvet. 

I also has a bunch of different kinds of leather.  Look closely below.  You can see the curvy velvet.  The triangles just below it are leather as is the curve at the top.  The big dark piece in the flower?  Suede leather.  In fact, I think there are six different red leathers in this piece.  Can you tell I've been collecting? LOL..

Look closely...how many different fancy fabrics can you spot?  I also had fun doing all the blanket stitching in the same red thread.  That saved so much time!

Follow me in all my adventures in my Facebook Group Machine Applique Adventures.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Be sure to check out my fellow hoppers:

February 17^th

Creatin' in the Sticks

Websterquilt

Vroomans Quilts

Hill Valley Quilter

Selina Quilts

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Samelia's Mum

February 18^th

Ms P Designs USA

Podunk Pretties

DayBrook Designs

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Bumbleberry Stitches

Sew Many Yarns

Karen's Korner

Stitchin At Home

February 19^th

MooseStash Quilting

Quilted Delights

Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Storied Quilts

Just Sew Quilter

Kathy’s Quilts

Just Because Quilts

Words & Stitches

Scrapdash

February 20^th

Life in the Scrapatch

Songbird Designs

High Road Quilter

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Patchwork Breeze

Lynn's Blog

DesertSky Quilting

Seams To Be Sew

February 21^st

Just Let Me Quilt

Quilt Fabrication

Beaquilter

All Thingz Sewn

Karrin’s Crazy World

Den syende himmel

Daughters of Dorinda

Quilt to the Edge

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Peculiar Posies Part 3 and a Tip!

Today it's time to show you what happened when I started stitching around my Peculiar Posies.  It's fun to see what happened with the velvet when I stitched around it with thread.  It's fun to see the contrast between the velvet and the straight lines.  The velvet was very stiff, but when I fluffed it up it got better.

This was a lot of fun to stitch too.  The bottom pink piece was hard to pick a color  of thread to use.

I decided this flower needed more color so I added some more color by stitching straight lines up the dark blue piece.  These are embroidery, not quilting lines as I haven't started quilting yet.

Sometimes stitching on leather can catch the presser foot and you don't move as smoothly as you want.  I've been working on how to combat this.  Sometimes I use a teflon presser foot, and sometimes I don't.  It's something I'm working on.  I'd love any advice you might have!

This was really fun to do.  I stuck the piece through the other one.  This is something I definitely want to do more of.  It's really fun.

I like leaving holes in piece too.  It's surprising and adds interest.

Here's a tip:  when your fabric is really large, roll it up and pin it before you do your stitching.  It makes it easier to manipulate under the machine.

I use a stabilizer on the back to help keep my stitches even and provide stabilization for silks and chambray.  I then rip off the extra area and only leave it under the applique pieces.  It adds a little puff to the finished quilt.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Peculiar Posies Part 2

Here are the other three flowers in my Peculiar Posies.  This top flower includes a really fun silk that had gold threads woven into it.  Pink leather of two varieties, dark purple velvet and dupioni silk and some blue silk I bought in Houston from Burma.  The green leaves are also a fun leather.

This flower also features dupioni silk and velvet, but the really fun part is the big blue piece which is made from fish leather.  Yes, you read that right.  They were a vendor at our local show last year and I just had to try it.  It's magnificent to work with because it's nice and thin.

Here are all the flowers appliqued.  Now to figure out a fabric for the pot!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Peculiar Posies Part 1

I have become enamored with interesting textiles and textures lately.  Don't get my wrong, I LOVE batiks and cottons, but sometimes it's fun to do something really outside the box.

Two years ago I discovered Terial Magic which is a spray that makes fabric VERY stiff, like cardboard or paper.  It's great for working with challenging fabrics.  

Here's a peek at my new project, Peculiar Posies.  I have been having fun with leather, taffeta, silk, velvet, all sorts of fun things.  

Here you can see I've put some leathers through each other!  And I found a leather with dots poked in it.

Here's my fun new flower that includes lots of interesting fabrics.  Since I usually only use bits of fabric for applique, I have been cutting small pieces and then applying the Terial Magic.  That way I don't saturate the entire fabric, just the small part I need.  It saves in the cost of Terial Magic.

Here is a velvet flower I've created from four different colors of hand-dyed velvet.  Such fun!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Ombre Oaks Part 3

I'm having fun quilting away the leaves.  The inner leaf is slightly darker than the fill thread for the outer leaf.  The inner fill is circles, swirls, and paisleys. 

The outer fill is fans with a few lines going up them.

The picture below is one of my favorites because you can really see the different black textures in the leaves.  The outer leaf is black leather.  The inner pieces are leathers, taffeta, velvet, and satin.

More next week.  

I am happy to say this quilt safely made it to the National Quilt Museum.  I CANNOT WAIT to see it hanging in the museum!

Suzy

Ombre Oaks - Part 2

I found out yesterday that this quilt is a finalist in the New Quilts from an Old Favorite contest at the National Quilt Museum....my quilt will hang there!  I can't wait.  I'm so excited!  Let's now talk about it's making some more.  Here's where I left you.  I had a gradation of oak leaf blocks.  Now to find the perfect fabric for the large block.

Here were what I had a large enough piece of....orange?  NO.

No turquoise.

Love this, but no.

 This fabric was the original intention....NOPE.

What did I end up with?  A light pink batik that worked perfectly.  I drafted an oak leaf and started filling it with feathers and swirls.  I again used leather, taffeta, satin, and velvet.  It was a blast to see it come to life.

I wish you could see the different textures, but it's hard in a photograph.

I am so excited to see it hang in the National Quilt Museum!!!!!!

I hope you get to quilt today and have a fantastic Thanksgiving!
Suzy

Ombre Oaks Part 1

When you get inspired, you get inspired.  Even though the deadline was just a month away, I was inspired by the Oak Leaf and Reel block contest in for the New Quilts from Old Favorite Quilt Contest at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah.

You had to take this block and do something new with it.

Sometimes the ideas just strike and you have to make them.  This happened to me and thank goodness there was a quilt retreat already planned in the month!

I started with an oak leaf idea an a piece of Frieda Anderson's Hand-dyed fabric in pink.

I made some really small oak leaves.  These are cut out of leather!

Then I made a bigger one.  Also leather.  And taffeta, velvet, and satin.  It was an experience working with these materials, but they add so much amazing texture!

When the block got bigger I added some dots inside too to fill space.

And the largest has lots of fun elements.

Now I have this much complete...you'll have to come back to see what happens next!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Fabscrap is Fabulous!

I was on Facebook or someone's blog the other day....I really wish I could remember where I read it!  Anyways, they were talking about Fabscrap.  It's a recycling firm in New York dedicated to recycling fabric from the fashion industry. 

So what did I do?

I went to the website to check it out! You can find it here.

I've been into leather for a while thanks to the wonderful Cathy Wiggins.  I love using it for applique details as it doesn't shred!  And I love all the textures you can get.

So...leather scrap bags for $4? Yes, you have to pay shipping.  I ordered five.  Couldn't help myself once I had to pay the shipping anyways.

Here's what I got.

Some fun textured leather.

This amazing metallic leather.

All these fun things!

And a whole box more of mostly gray, brown, and black scraps and samples and swatches.  It's a treasure and it was for a good cause too!

Countdown to Houston....7 days!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Appliqueing Leather Tip

I have been loving appliqueing with leather lately.  Especially for dots...it doesn't fray!  However, I'm doing a huge leather piece right now and the blanket stitches were looking wonky and it wasn't traveling under the presser foot right.  The stitches were way too close together and as needles leave holes in leather ripping really isn't an option.

What to do? My mom to the rescue!  This is a Bernina 56 foot.  Why is it green?  It's Teflon coated so it glides over the fabric!  It worked like a charm and my blanket stitches looked MUCH better.

You have to be careful when appliqueing leather because the layers can start to separate as shown right in front of the needle in the picture below.  What to do?  Make sure you use a large width.  I usually do 2.0.  With leather, I go at least 2.5 for width.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy